Introducing Arguments (linguistic Inquiry Monographs)
by Liina Pylkkänen /
2008 / English / PDF
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This concise work offers a compositional theory of verbal
argument structure in natural languages that focuses on how
arguments that are not "core" arguments of the verb (arguments
that are not introduced by verbal roots themselves) are
introduced into argument structures. Liina Pylkkänen shows that
the type of argument structure variation that allows additional
noncore arguments is a pervasive property of human language and
that most languages have verbs that exhibit this behavior. It
would be natural to hypothesize that the grammatical elements
that allow for this variation are the same in different
languages, but Pylkkänen, citing the differences between the
inventories of verbs that allow additional arguments in English
and Venda, shows the difficulties in this assumption. Either the
noncore arguments are introduced by different elements with
different distributions, she argues, or the introducing elements
are the same and some other factor is responsible for the
distributional difference. Distinguishing between these two types
of explanations and articulating the properties of
argument-introducing elements is the essence of Pylkkänen's
theory. Investigating the grammatical elements that allow the
addition of noncore arguments, Pylkkänen argues that the
introduction of additional arguments is largely carried by seven
functional heads. Following Chomsky, she claims that these belong
to a universal inventory of functional elements from which a
particular language must make its selection. Cross-linguistic
variation, she argues, has two sources: selection; and the way a
language packages the selected elements into syntactic heads.
Liina Pylkkänen is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and
Psychology at NYU.
This concise work offers a compositional theory of verbal
argument structure in natural languages that focuses on how
arguments that are not "core" arguments of the verb (arguments
that are not introduced by verbal roots themselves) are
introduced into argument structures. Liina Pylkkänen shows that
the type of argument structure variation that allows additional
noncore arguments is a pervasive property of human language and
that most languages have verbs that exhibit this behavior. It
would be natural to hypothesize that the grammatical elements
that allow for this variation are the same in different
languages, but Pylkkänen, citing the differences between the
inventories of verbs that allow additional arguments in English
and Venda, shows the difficulties in this assumption. Either the
noncore arguments are introduced by different elements with
different distributions, she argues, or the introducing elements
are the same and some other factor is responsible for the
distributional difference. Distinguishing between these two types
of explanations and articulating the properties of
argument-introducing elements is the essence of Pylkkänen's
theory. Investigating the grammatical elements that allow the
addition of noncore arguments, Pylkkänen argues that the
introduction of additional arguments is largely carried by seven
functional heads. Following Chomsky, she claims that these belong
to a universal inventory of functional elements from which a
particular language must make its selection. Cross-linguistic
variation, she argues, has two sources: selection; and the way a
language packages the selected elements into syntactic heads.
Liina Pylkkänen is Assistant Professor of Linguistics and
Psychology at NYU.
